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what do you believe?
forsythia12:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on March 12, 2008, 12:42:22 am ---I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was criticizing your post - let me spell it right - forsythia I was not, I was speaking about proselytizing in general.
People may have good intentions, but you know the saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Almost all proselytizing is unsolicited, so people shouldn't be going on missionary work at all because in doing so they are being presumptive that - unasked - people want to hear about another religion's message.
My Mormon friend even admitted that he was sending people to a Mormon hell on his missions. If people had never heard the message of the Mormons, then they wouldn't go to hell. But if they had heard it and rejected it, then they were going to hell. So basically, by going on a mission and educating people about Mormonism, he was sending more people to his religion's hell than otherwise would be if they remained ignorant.
--- End quote ---
Yes, i hear what you're saying. i used to do mission work. i was a youth pastor for a non-donminational , christian based youth organization who reaced out to highschool kids. i thoroughly enjoyed the work, and believed in what i was doing. i never pushed anything, and i loved those kids for exactly who they were. we just told them about the bible because it's hidden in our schools. i just think in order to make an informed decision, you need to know what it is your (not you personally) rejecting. these kids knew nothing about any religion, and that is one we could teach, outside of school. had nothing to do with taking them to church, or advising them away from other religions. for me, once i became a christian, it was important for me to take courses in religious studies in college/university so i could fully understand what it is i do, and do not believe. i wanted to learn all about buddhism, judeaism, catholicism, islam, and hinduism. there are many more i will learn about too in my own personal study at home. i do this because i dislike ignorance. i don't want anyone to be sheltered from any information whatsoever. i want people to know about stuff, and i always want to know more. that's when i think informed decisions are made...and that's why i believe my mission had good intentions, and did no harm. .....or at least none that i know of. i believe in education, and i'm sad that due to political correctedness we don't teach kids this stuff anymore. 80% of the teens we had have never heard of the christmas story before, and i think that's a shame. i don't believe in chanting christian prayers in the beginning of each class, or praying to a christian god in school because that would discriminate, but i do think schools need to teach, at least a little bit, the wide variety of faiths we have. i think if they knew what others believed, they would understand eachother more....so, that was part of our mission.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: forsythia12 on March 12, 2008, 12:54:36 am ---Yes, i hear what you're saying. i used to do mission work. i was a youth pastor for a non-donminational , christian based youth organization who reaced out to highschool kids. i thoroughly enjoyed the work, and believed in what i was doing. i never pushed anything, and i loved those kids for exactly who they were. we just told them about the bible because it's hidden in our schools. i just think in order to make an informed decision, you need to know what it is your (not you personally) rejecting. these kids knew nothing about any religion, and that is one we could teach, outside of school. had nothing to do with taking them to church, or advising them away from other religions. for me, once i became a christian, it was important for me to take courses in religious studies in college/university so i could fully understand what it is i do, and do not believe. i wanted to learn all about buddhism, judeaism, catholicism, islam, and hinduism. there are many more i will learn about too in my own personal study at home. i do this because i dislike ignorance. i don't want anyone to be sheltered from any information whatsoever. i want people to know about stuff, and i always want to know more. that's when i think informed decisions are made...and that's why i believe my mission had good intentions, and did no harm. .....or at least none that i know of. i believe in education, and i'm sad that due to political correctedness we don't teach kids this stuff anymore. 80% of the teens we had have never heard of the christmas story before, and i think that's a shame. i don't believe in chanting christian prayers in the beginning of each class, or praying to a christian god in school because that would discriminate, but i do think schools need to teach, at least a little bit, the wide variety of faiths we have. i think if they knew what others believed, they would understand eachother more....so, that was part of our mission.
--- End quote ---
Unfortunately, not all missions are like yours. My Mormon friend went on a mission to a staunchly Catholic country with the intent (good or not) of basically subverting people's belief in their current religion so they would accept his. He actually taught that there was a "right path" and that was the Mormon path.
So his mission wasn't about 'educating people' about all kinds of religions, only about the "right" religion - his religion. And of course, the people of the country he went to were not ignorant of religion, having been steeped in Catholicism their whole lives.
Personally, I believe for a person to make an informed decision, they have to be adults, fully capable of analytical thinking. This excludes children and most young teenagers, so I believe children should be exposed to all types of religions or withheld from information about religion until they're old enough to understand them. After all, I certainly wouldn't want a child reading the bible. It has such stories of rape, violence, cruelty and incest that would make anybody's toes curl and just letting them read the 'good parts' does them a disservice, IMO.
forsythia12:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on March 12, 2008, 01:04:17 am ---Unfortunately, not all missions are like yours. My Mormon friend went on a mission to a staunchly Catholic country with the intent (good or not) of basically subverting people's belief in their current religion so they would accept his. He actually taught that there was a "right path" and that was the Mormon path.
So his mission wasn't about 'educating people' about all kinds of religions, only about the "right" religion - his religion. And of course, the people of the country he went to were not ignorant of religion, having been steeped in Catholicism their whole lives.
Personally, I believe for a person to make an informed decision, they have to be adults, fully capable of analytical thinking. This excludes children and most young teenagers, so I believe children should be exposed to all types of religions or withheld from information about religion until they're old enough to understand them. After all, I certainly wouldn't want a child reading the bible. It has such stories of rape, violence, cruelty and incest that would make anybody's toes curl and just letting them read the 'good parts' does them a disservice, IMO.
--- End quote ---
well, our organization was christian, so it was definately bias, as we did not 'teach' other religions. that's up to other religions to become more involved. we did tell them what WE believed, and then it was up to them to thiink about it, or seek other stuff. we just wanted to get the 'ball rolling' so to speak, in their thought process.
i have two little ones and they go to church, and we read them their children's bibles, which doesn't exclude bad stories, but explains them in age appropriate manners.
one of our goals was to inform teens about a different way of life compared to what they've been exposed to in secular groups. they were personal messages that we sent, and we were there to be their friend , no matter what they believed, and we were there as 'mentors', i guess, or there to answer any questions they had. they knew we were christian, and they knew what we were about, so they had the desire to know more to begin with. i just wanted to learn about other religions for my own education, and i love to learn, so that was personal. we didn't do the teaching, but we encouraged kids to ask questions. these teens were anywhere from 15-18, and they were adult enough to think abstractly, or at least the ones i knew anyway. we had fun with them, we loved them, we were their friends, we were just 'there' for them, and our motive was out of love for god, and a love for people....not for numbers or quotas.
i understand what you say, and a lot of mission work i see out there is shamefull, but i do see a lot of good being done too. for example, the bible teaches to give to the poor, or to give your neighboor the shirt off your back....so when i see habitat for humanity, or 'loaves and fishes' doing work in el salvadore, or mexico, buildiing houses for people, etc....and they're asked why they do it, and they reply "because i love god, and i love his people"...that to me is a positive mission. that's putting one's faith into action, and faith without deeds is dead...
i appreciate your posts, and i enjoy discussing this with you. i respect where you're coming from
i didn't take any offence to the "n" in my name...just making a correction.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: forsythia12 on March 12, 2008, 01:37:39 am ---well, our organization was christian, so it was definately bias, as we did not 'teach' other religions. that's up to other religions to become more involved. we did tell them what WE believed, and then it was up to them to thiink about it, or seek other stuff. we just wanted to get the 'ball rolling' so to speak, in their thought process.
i have two little ones and they go to church, and we read them their children's bibles, which doesn't exclude bad stories, but explains them in age appropriate manners.
one of our goals was to inform teens about a different way of life compared to what they've been exposed to in secular groups. they were personal messages that we sent, and we were there to be their friend , no matter what they believed, and we were there as 'mentors', i guess, or there to answer any questions they had. they knew we were christian, and they knew what we were about, so they had the desire to know more to begin with. i just wanted to learn about other religions for my own education, and i love to learn, so that was personal. we didn't do the teaching, but we encouraged kids to ask questions. these teens were anywhere from 15-18, and they were adult enough to think abstractly, or at least the ones i knew anyway. we had fun with them, we loved them, we were their friends, we were just 'there' for them, and our motive was out of love for god, and a love for people....not for numbers or quotas.
i understand what you say, and a lot of mission work i see out there is shamefull, but i do see a lot of good being done too. for example, the bible teaches to give to the poor, or to give your neighboor the shirt off your back....so when i see habitat for humanity, or 'loaves and fishes' doing work in el salvadore, or mexico, buildiing houses for people, etc....and they're asked why they do it, and they reply "because i love god, and i love his people"...that to me is a positive mission. that's putting one's faith into action, and faith without deeds is dead...
i appreciate your posts, and i enjoy discussing this with you. i respect where you're coming from
i didn't take any offence to the "n" in my name...just making a correction.
--- End quote ---
Your mission sounds nice, forsythia, much nicer than his, even if you could try hard and not find a nicer person than my Mormon friend. But however nice he was still butting in where he wasn't invited. And again, not anything personal, but I do feel it does a grave disservice and misrepresents a religion if someone only reads to children or teens 'age appropriate' matter from the Bible. You end up with an adult like a friend of mine who told me she named her dog Jericho because that was her 'favorite story' from the Bible.
I looked at her aghast, and asked, "Your favorite story? Do you know what happened to the people of Jericho after the walls came tumbling down?"
She didn't. She went home, read it, came back the next day and said, "OK, I just like the name."
Even the Christmas Story is 'edited' so to speak. People traditionally end the telling of the tale in Luke with the baby being born in the manager. No body keeps reading after that. Where Mary isn't allowed to take her new born baby into god's presence at the Temple for weeks because she is 'unclean', having just given birth and not worthy to be in god's presence because women are basically not as good as men.
IMO, people tend to leave stuff like that out from telling children/teens because it would cause awkward questions they don't want to answer and it might turn them away from Christianity. Yet, this is their religion, too. So in teaching this way, they give children/teens the sanitized, PC correct version, then these children are strongly influenced by their religion, and grow up basically knowing very little about it except the 'good parts'. IMO, that's extremely misleading.
You end up with people like my friend, or cafeteria Christians/bible thumpers picking and choosing the parts they like and ignoring the rest, fundamentalists crowing against homosexuals, not having read the parts where everyone is admonished against eating shellfish or pork or wearing two different materials of clothing or in the Christian bible part, Jesus being against divorce and Paul being against people getting married and actually having sex.
This is why I believe that children need to be kept from any religious studies until they're old enough to understand and teens until they're capable of analytical thinking so they can make an 'informed' decision.
To teach only sanitized versions earlier, when children can't hear the rest of the stories due to their 'R' rating is wrong. Religious leaders certainly knew what they were doing when they said to teach a child when they are young and they won't stray afterwards. That's called indoctrination.
injest:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on March 12, 2008, 08:22:22 am ---Your mission sounds nice, forsythia, much nicer than his, even if you could try hard and not find a nicer person than my Mormon friend. But however nice he was still butting in where he wasn't invited. And again, not anything personal, but I do feel it does a grave disservice and misrepresents a religion if someone only reads to children or teens 'age appropriate' matter from the Bible. You end up with an adult like a friend of mine who told me she named her dog Jericho because that was her 'favorite story' from the Bible.
I looked at her aghast, and asked, "Your favorite story? Do you know what happened to the people of Jericho after the walls came tumbling down?"
She didn't. She went home, read it, came back the next day and said, "OK, I just like the name."
Even the Christmas Story is 'edited' so to speak. People traditionally end the telling of the tale in Luke with the baby being born in the manager. No body keeps reading after that. Where Mary isn't allowed to take her new born baby into god's presence at the Temple for weeks because she is 'unclean', having just given birth and not worthy to be in god's presence because women are basically not as good as men.
IMO, people tend to leave stuff like that out from telling children/teens because it would cause awkward questions they don't want to answer and it might turn them away from Christianity. Yet, this is their religion, too. So in teaching this way, they give children/teens the sanitized, PC correct version, then these children are strongly influenced by their religion, and grow up basically knowing very little about it except the 'good parts'. IMO, that's extremely misleading.
You end up with people like my friend, or cafeteria Christians/bible thumpers picking and choosing the parts they like and ignoring the rest, fundamentalists crowing against homosexuals, not having read the parts where everyone is admonished against eating shellfish or pork or wearing two different materials of clothing or in the Christian bible part, Jesus being against divorce and Paul being against people getting married and actually having sex.
This is why I believe that children need to be kept from any religious studies until they're old enough to understand and teens until they're capable of analytical thinking so they can make an 'informed' decision.
To teach only sanitized versions earlier, when children can't hear the rest of the stories due to their 'R' rating is wrong. Religious leaders certainly knew what they were doing when they said to teach a child when they are young and they won't stray afterwards. That's called indoctrination.
--- End quote ---
or to teach sanitized versions period. Everyone knows how God supposedly destroyed Sodom and Gommorrah because of homosexuality...but how many preachers talk about the next few chapters?? the ones where Lot humped both his daughters with no penalty??
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